NBC was the number one network in adults 18-49, but CBS led with total viewers.

On NBC, The Biggest Loser earned a 2.0, up a tenth from last week's 1.9 adults 18-49 rating. The Voice finale earned a 3.9, up from last week's 3.1 adults 18-49 rating but a far cry from the 4.9 that last fall's finale earned (and the 4.4 adults 18-49 rating that last spring's finale earned).

On CBS, NCIS scored a 2.8, down a tenth from last week's 2.9 adults 18-49 rating. NCIS Los Angeles matched last week's 2.4 adults 18-49 rating . Person Of Interestgarnered a series low tying 1.9, down three tenths from its last original's 2.2 adults 18-49 rating three weeks ago.

On ABC, What Would You Do? scored a 0.7 adults 18-49 rating, down two tenths from last week's 0.9 adults 18-49 rating.

From 12:35-1:05 a.m. ET, ABC's "Nightline" averaged a 1.1/4 in metered-market households and a 0.4/3 in 18-49 in the Local People Meters.

From 12:35-1:35 a.m. ET, "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" (1.7/6 in metered-market households with an encore telecast) beat CBS's first-run "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" (1.3/5). In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, "Late Night" (0.6/4 in 18-49 with an encore) topped "Late Late Show" (0.3/2).

At 1:35 a.m., "Last Call with Carson Daly" averaged a 1.0/4 in metered-market households with an encore and a 0.4/4 in adults 18-49 in the 25 markets with local people meters.

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Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.

Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.

Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

Overall, The Voice finale represents a 20% year-over-year decline in 18-49 vs last Fall’s finale, in addition to being 11% below its spring-season finale.

Joseph

The real story last night (December 17th) was not the “Voice” finale, but Univision finishing third in overall viewers as well as in the 18-34 and 18-49 demos.

There have been nights when Univision has done very well in the 18-49 and especially 18-34 demos during the regular September-through-May prime-time TV season, but I can’t recall a night during the regular TV season where Univision has finished third in overall viewers.

Ultima

@Bored NowWhat I’m saying is that CBS did the show absolutely no favors with this decision and that putting a new episode on last night the way they did was only ever going to harm the potential ratings.

The alternative being to air an original episode of Person of Interest after repeats of NCIS/LA. I’m not sure how that’s doing the show any favors either.

It’s not like CBS broke from their usual scheduling pattern, they’ve had originals on this Tuesday each of the past six years, many times with all repeats the previous week.

Ultima

@BilliamBad scheduling. Never schedule a show in December unless you want it to fail.

It’s not like there’s a major commercial holiday in December which causes a flood of TV advertising.

Why Watch

Not sure why a new episode would be shown this close to the Festivus season. I didn’t realize PoI was new, but luckily I still had it programmed for taping so I can watch it later.

thesnowleopard

Man, even a repeat of SPN does better than a Lady Gaga special.

Ellie

@Missing Joss Carter
I could not have said it any better. The attitude of the POI creative team seems to be ‘you’ll-take-what-we-give-you-and-like-it”. They have an agenda for the show – fine. But we live in an age of 200 channels, not counting Netflix, pay cable, and social networking.

thesnowleopard

@Ultima

Which traditionally doesn’t do regular programming any good.

Ultima

@JosephThe real story last night (December 17th) was not the “Voice” finale, but Univision finishing third in overall viewers as well as in the 18-34 and 18-49 demos.

FOX is starting to look more and more like the CW. The networks need to come up with some clever 8pm counter programming to NCIS. Wednesday night TV is horrible.

Bored Now

@Ultima

“It’s not like CBS broke from their usual scheduling pattern, they’ve had originals on this Tuesday each of the past six years, many times with all repeats the previous week.”

Again though, I’m only talking about this specific case, where a random individual episode was scheduled three weeks after a major three part storyline concluded at a point in the season that could very easily have served as a midseason break. As I said before, in most other cases I’d be agreeing with you so saying what CBS would normally do is missing the point a little.

Even to someone such as myself who randomly found out in advance that POI was new last night (through checking something about the previous episode on Wikipedia, I seem to remember) it felt like the previous episode was supposed to be the midseason finale. It seemed specifically written for that purpose. Therefore anyone who also got that impression and didn’t bother to check the schedule based on the assumption that the show was done until January is very likely to have missed last night’s episode. You might check the week after or even the week after that but would you bother checking again the week before Christmas? A lot less likely, surely.

Nothing you are saying is in any way wrong in general. What I’m trying to say to you though is that in this particular case there is a higher than usual possibility that the more casual fans wouldn’t have been aware of the new episode, given the circumstances. Conceivably enough to nudge the ratings down a further point or so more than might have otherwise happened.

It’s about maximizing profits, not ratings. If you want to charge a lot for your time when retailers are looking for wall-to-wall Christmas ads, then you need to pony up the ratings and that requires original programming.

JJF

POI’s low is likely due to it airing so close to Christmas. Honestly, I’ve seen so many shows hit lows airing episodes this close to Christmas and yet networks continue to dump episodes in the last week before Christmas. On well, not bad all things considered.

Tomcatt630

Sure, “Voice” is a hit, but have any of the singers had hits on the industry Music Charts? Who is their ‘Kelly Clarkson’?

jenna

@ Ashley – Christina was the coach last fall when the ratings were 4.9, and Shakira was the coach last spring when the ratings were 4.4 (a drop from Christina)…so there is clearly not a direct correlation between who the judges are, just a steady decline with each finale (this one being adjusted up to a 4.0). If anything I would blame the decline on over-exposure. Two cycles per year is gradually going to kill the show unfortunately.

jenna

And @ EVERYONE…could we please stop pitting Christina and Shakira against each other. It’s so ridiculous and petty! People are always doing this with female artists. They’re not COMPETING with each other, they agreed to switch off each season because with 2 cycles a year, the show becomes a FULL TIME job. I may be a bigger fan of the original 4 coaches, but I watch the show regardless of who the judges are because I enjoy them all.

thesnowleopard

@Ultima

Not really. You can just put in wall-to-wall repeats of old holiday programming, call it all “traditional,” and save anything likely to get decent ratings, normally, for other times of the year when it will actually do well. Aside from the odd holiday-themed episode, the networks have been doing it that way for years and it still works for them.